


to live is to kill

by helpmelearntoloveagain



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anorexia, Bulimia, Depression, Eating Disorders, Eating disorder trigger warning, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Sexual Assault, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, accurate depictions of eating disorders, please don't read if you're triggered
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:01:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29422002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helpmelearntoloveagain/pseuds/helpmelearntoloveagain
Summary: (title from untitled haiku 6, violet bent backwards over the grass - lana del rey)I suck at summaries but basically Louis is a collegiate football player - and he has an eating disorder that so far he has successfully hidden from everyone in his life. Harry is a freshman, with a seemingly unfaltering optimism he uses to hide his own problems. What happens when two people who don't love themselves, fall in love with each other?
Relationships: Harry Styles & Louis Tomlinson





	to live is to kill

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! It's mentioned in the tags but I will preface this by saying it again; please be mindful of your own capacity to read this work. If depictions of eating disorders, mental illness, or anything tagged is a trigger for you, do not read this. And also, a reminder to anyone who needs to hear it today; you are loved, and worthy, and more than a number. stay safe <3

_Breathe._

Louis sat, propped up against the cold tiles in the locker-room showers. His head felt heavy and light at the same time, whole body trembling under the light spray of hot water. 

_In and out. Take it one pace at a time. Get through this. Stand up._

Pressing his palms against the floor, he pushed himself to his feet, wincing as his stomach cramped up painfully. His vision momentarily cut out to black and white static and he stumbled into the cubicle door. 

"Louis, are you all good there mate?" Liam, his team-mate, called out. 

_Fuck._

"Yeah I'm fine, just tripped!" he shouted back, turning off the water quickly and wrapping a towel around himself.

"Okay well I'm gonna go wait outside for you, hurry up," Liam responded, and moments later, Louis heard the locker-room door swing shut.

It hadn't always been like this. Once upon a time, Louis hadn't cared about anything - least of all his weight. He had been happy then. Blind, but happy nonetheless. He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that everything began to fall apart; it was a gradual disintegration. It all started as a diet plan. Just a diet. _"Track your macros, eat more of this, eat less of that, this is good, this is bad"._ Then, one day he had had a discussion with a girl in his musicology class, and she showed him her calorie tracking app. _"Download MyFitnessPal! It's so helpful"._

He couldn't tell you the exact moment at which things had gotten bad, but one day he found himself standing in the harshly-lit supermarket aisle at 10pm, staring at the cardboard boxes of muesli bars, trying to decide which would be healthier.

" _Sir, are you okay?"_ the short female employee had startled him out of his trance.

_"I'm fine, yes, uh why?"_

_"It's only that you've been standing there for over an hour,"_

At that remark, Louis had taken his phone out of his pocket and sworn upon seeing the time.

 _"Oh shit I didn't realise, I've got to go, sorry-"_ he'd stumbled out, making his way to the automatic glass doors and all but running back to his car.

So no, there was no one catalyst, rather a collection of little things that had slowly turned into his 'normal'. And the scary thing was, Louis wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

Louis sank down into the enveloping softness of his bed. When he and Liam had first moved into the student flat, there had been three other guys - Stan, Ed and Zayn. They'd all been very agreeable roommates but Stan and Ed had graduated and subsequently moved out last year, leaving with cardboard boxes and promises to stay in touch. Stan's room had been the biggest, and neither Zayn nor Liam were bothered to fight for it, so Louis had claimed it as his own. 

Finding two new roommates who were passable people to live with had proved a near impossible task. Three weeks until classes were due to start again, and they were close to just accepting anyone, so Liam and Zayn had said it was a blessing that the two guys they'd interviewed seemed like good lads. Louis had been at work when the soon-to-be freshmen had come around, but Zayn had liked them, which spoke volumes as he wasn't the most sociable of them all. Harry and Niall, those were their names. Apparently one of them was Irish, but Louis couldn't remember which one. 

They were due to arrive in two hours, and Louis wanted to be well out of their way by then, in case he was enlisted to assist in moving any boxes or furniture they'd brought with them. God knows he wouldn't have the energy to do that. The last time he had tried carrying something heavy had not ended well. He'd offered to help Professor Campbell move the stack of musicianship textbooks on his desk, and halfway to his office, Louis had blacked out momentarily and lost step, falling to the floor alongside the books.

 _"Aren't you on the football team?"_ his Professor had asked, as if disappointed by the lack of coordination. 

He had laughed it off, claiming that his arms were sore from working out and that he was just a klutz - which though partially true, was not the full reason. The dizziness that accompanied his hunger pangs was quickly becoming less of a nuisance and more of a hazard. Louis hated that his body was no longer able to do the things it used to be capable of. He knew that it was his own fault that his muscle mass had deteriorated, but all he saw it as was his own shortcomings. _Weak. Pathetic. Incapable._ That was just him.

Louis was startled awake by the sound of keys being dropped in the hallway, promptly followed by footsteps and a loud Irish voice saying,

"Oooh! Look Harry, a pot plant!!"

Ah. That must be the freshmen. 

Hauling himself out of the cocooned layers around him, Louis pulled on a grey, cable-knit sweater about ten sizes too large for him. He padded down the hallway, soft socks on the polished wood floor and took in the sight before him. 

Two disheveled, looking boys stood by the closed front door, one of them rifling through a stack of papers whilst the other leaned into the leafy pot plant that Louis had put by the shoe cabinet. 

"The plant's name is Gerald," Louis said, and immediately the boys looked up, the brunette dropping his stack of papers.

"Oops."

"Hi," Louis countered, leaning forward to help pick up the fallen pages. 

"Hey there lad, I'm Niall and this lanky one is Harry, you must be Louis? Liam's told us a lot about you," the blond, no, _Niall,_ said, and then immediately followed up with an "also, I like Gerald very much."

"Thanks," Louis handed the papers over to the brunette, "Liam should be back from work soon, but if you want to get yourselves settled in, I can show you the rooms."

"That sounds great, Louis," a surprisingly deep voice enunciated every syllable. Harry straightened up from over the manila folder he had shoved all the pages back into, and practically towered over Louis. He was tall, and from what Louis could make out underneath his clothes, was also muscular in a thin way.

"Um okay then," Louis tried not to feel awkward, as the inadequacy of being next to Harry sunk in. He cleared his throat, "Alright so we usually keep shoes off indoors, in the cabinet by the front door. One of our old flat-mates, Stan, he was into this Japanese cleaning thing and it just kind of stuck."

"I love Japan!" Niall piped up, over-enthusiastic, "Me mates and I went there on a school trip in grade 11!"

"Oh? What subject was that for?" Louis asked.

"Society and culture - its' going to be my major, I've already decided," Niall finishes with a profound, oddly proud expression.

"You said you wanted to major in music last week," Harry says, lightly, and Louis notices the dimples that form as he smiles.

_Fuck. Don't get distracted._

Harry kicks off his pair of crusty white vans in a way that is far from graceful, and picks them up with a free hand, looking back at Louis questioningly.

"Oh yeah, uh, just- here" Louis opens the shoe cabinet and ceremoniously dumps them in a slot, "This can be your rack now."

"Thanks," Harry says, slowly and Louis realized that they were waiting for him to move


End file.
